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AFM Magazine


Maximizing Your Time on the Practice Field

San Diego State\'s defensive practice structure
by: Curt Block
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Detailed preparation and expert organization are essential to every winning program. The practice schedules leading to Saturday must be precisely crafted, minute-to-minute plans designed to produce maximum effort at kickoff.

AFM asked Defensive Coordinator Bob Elliott for a specific breakdown of how he gets his San Diego State Aztecs ready for Mountain West opponents. Most important for his players he said is to get them accustomed to the same routine every day. The details of the sessions may differ but the basics are the same: get to practice at 2pm.

“We have a standardized plan that we use and then we fill in the template every day,” Elliott said. “We put everything we’re going to do each day on paper, which drills we’re going to do and at what time. The coaches carry this out to the field with them. I don’t think the players need to know the specific drills that we’re going to do that day. I’ve been at schools where they post that plan in the locker room for the players to see but I don’t think that’s necessarily important.

Morning meeting
“Early in the morning on a practice day our head coach (Chuck Long) gets together with all his coaches, offense, defense, special teams to coordinate schedules on everything; that is, the warm-ups, when the offense and defense work against each other, etc. There are general parameters the head coach has to lay out before we can fill in the pieces.

2-2:15
“We start every practice with 2pm meetings. Our players know to have their last class scheduled to end by the time our meetings begin. The first group to meet is the special teams. Each element of special teams that is going to be emphasized in practice that day has a chance to meet with the members of those teams to discuss what they’re going to do.

2:15-2:45 (3:15)
“Then we have anywhere from a half hour to an hour of individual meetings with position groups. Occasionally, we take some of that time to come together as a larger group to talk about certain things like points of emphasis, such as turnovers. We might also meet for five minutes at the start of that period and then disperse into separate rooms or we might meet for five minutes and watch maybe 10 plays from the previous practice that were particularly good or bad.

“We often take about 5-10 minutes at the start of the individual meeting period and stay together as a defense in order to emphasize to each player how their position fits into the whole. I think it’s really important that football players understand that the job they’re doing is not the only job that matters and what they’re doing fits into a bigger picture. Then each position coach takes his group to watch tape and makes corrections before installing what we’re going to put in that day.

“In the next period we take some time to do our walk-throughs which we think are important. We’ll take either our entire defense out or some day just the secondary and linebackers and go out on the field and actually walk through the things we just talked about in the meetings. I think it’s a great teaching aide to go from the board or video and go right out and walk through the plays. They don’t have to be warmed up to do this and don’t have to wear helmets. There’s no contact. We would take 10 minutes of this period and work on basic run defenses which we call ‘run fits’ against a scout team or work on motion adjustments just with the linebackers and secondary.

“Some players get more out of walk-throughs than others but they’re important. First, when you line your offense up against the defense in a walk through and they know it’s a walk through they may just stand up and look sloppy. We make our guys get their pads down. We call it pad levels for walk-throughs. They don’t have to get in a stance but they have to get their pad levels so they simulate the line of scrimmage. We have them fully dressed when they do this. I don’t want them looking rag tag and not knowing who’s defense or offense. It’s important that coaches demand attention and focus and that second and third team players are also paying attention in the back. Without those things the walk-throughs can deteriorate into a wasted 10 minutes.”

Stretches
“After the walk-throughs the defense gets together and we do our warm-ups and stretching. The latest type of stretching drills is called dynamic stretch or plyometric exercises and combined with static stretching is really the rage nowadays. It’s a combination of the old time stretches with those plyometric explosives which are drills that the running coaches do.

“Static stretches are when you stretch your hamstring or quads out while you’re standing. The dynamic stretches are where you run 10 yards of high knee running, then 10 yards where you kick your foot up as high as possible and then alternate kicks so you’re stretching but you’re doing it in a movement as if you were going down the field. They call it a dynamic plyometric routine as opposed to a static routine.”

Something special
“After stretching we go directly to special teams. The reason for that is to emphasize the importance of special teams. We want to get our special team players while they’re fresh. We break down our special teams fundamental drills of blocking on a punt team or holding up punt returners.

Tackles, turnovers and fundamentals
“The first thing we do every day, whether it’s training camp, mid-season or spring ball, is we go into a fundamental circuit. We split our team into four groups, usually by position so we get body types together as we teach fundamentals, mostly tackling. Since tackling is a universal fundamental of defensive football at all positions we want to be sure everyone gets time on tackling. We believe you get what you emphasize. One station might be open field tackles, one might be a tackle in front of a crash pad which simulates a knock back tackle. Another circuit might be where they’re practicing an angle tackle on the sideline or another where we’re trying to strip the ball out or recovering fumbles. Besides tackling we’re working on trying to improve our ability to force turnovers. It’s a fundamental defensive circuit that takes 10 minutes. We’re really teaching tackling, forcing turnovers and recovering turnovers.”

Pursuit drill
“We have two team turnover drills where we run the defense out on the field. We toss the ball to a runner who goes down the sideline and each defensive player from their alignment at the line of scrimmage has to take a proper pursuit angle and tag the ball carrier. We’re trying to emphasize angles and effort in pursuit.

“Then we have a team turnover drill where we also line them up in formation and one of the coaches simulates being a QB where he drops back and throws an interception to our defense and the rest of the defense runs to the interceptor and leads him into the end zone. That’s our turnover return drill. We do those occasionally to break the routine of the tackling circuit.”

3:15-4:00. - Individual Period
“Next, each position group splits and goes with their own coach. This is where the fundamental work is very specific to the group. The defensive backs work on their back peddling and coverage skills and how to line up against certain formations. The defensive line is working on how to defeat a block and pass rushing. The linebackers are working on how to get off blocks and footwork. Every position has footwork that’s specific for them. During this period we might have the offense and defensive lines working against each other on fundamental blocks and block reaction. The defensive backs could be practicing with the wide receivers working on how to cover routes. The outside linebackers would be up against tight ends. The position coaches work out these periods among themselves.”

4-4:15 - Inside Drills
“From there we go into a group run drill. We call it an inside drill where we’re on run defense exclusively. When we teach run and pass defense we separate them first. In the season we might take seven minutes and run our own offensive team plays against our defense and then the last seven minutes to run our next opponents plays with our scout defense. The total inside drill period is about 15 minutes.”

4:15-4:35 - Pass defense period
“Next is the pass defense. The linebackers and defensive backs will work against the quarterback, wide receivers, tight ends and running backs in what we call pass skeleton. Some people call it 7 on 7. We might take seven minutes against our offense and 13 minutes working with the scout team trying to recognize the different pass patterns we’re going to see. While the skill positions are working on pass defenses, the defensive line is practicing pass rush techniques usually against the offensive line.”

Elliott is quick to point out that players get 2-3 minute water breaks throughout the practice session as needed.

4:35-5:00 - Team Period
“The rest of practice is devoted to teamwork where we’re together as an entire defense. In the team period we believe it’s important for our number one defense to play against our best offensive talent for at least some portion of that practice. We call that the service period where the offense services the defense and vice versa to simulate opponent play.

We want our best people against our best people. That’s where you get your team ready for the speed of the game. If you work against your third team all week and then go against a really fast team on Saturday you’re going to get caught short. We work hard with the scout team so they can actually simulate the specific plays we’re going to see on Saturday at a high enough quality so we can recognize what the play is.

“The last thing we do every day is to finish practice with some type of competitive drill. It might be five or six plays where its offense vs. defense. It could be a two minute or 45 second drill. It might be third and long and the head coach would say to the offensive coach you’ve got five plays at third and long or it might be a goal line situation and see who wins in a competitive situation. We’re always trying to end practice with a high tempo, high level, high-spirited competition. They may not be full tackle situations but it’s still as competitive as you can make it without tackling and risking injuries.”






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